Job Description
Job title: Budget Builder (West Oxfordshire)
Role summary: West Oxfordshire District Council have identified a number of residents across the locality that may be living with a negative budget and struggling to meet their financial obligations. Reporting to a Projects Manager or Supervisor, the post holder will be working with households identified by West Oxfordshire District Council to ensure that they maximise their income, minimise their expenditure and learn about financial capability tools such as budgeting and energy efficiency measures that will assist them to manage their finances as effectively as possible.
Job location: Witney (West Oxfordshire)
Pay Rate:£25,592 – £26,135 annual salary pro rata, depending on experience.
Hours: 18.5 per week Part time
Contract is: 9 months Fixed Term Contract
Role purpose
Households living under a negative budget refer to families or individuals whose expenses exceed their income. In other words, they are spending more money than they earn, which often leads to the accumulation of debt or the depletion of savings. This situation is unsustainable in the long term and can create significant financial stress.
The aim of this project is to support clients to produce a sustainable household budget by focusing on a number of potential solutions, including:
* Increasing financial literacy: Making better decisions about managing money.
* Cutting expenses: Reducing essential expenditure such as energy costs by shopping around for better tariffs and reducing non‑essential expenditure.
* Increasing income: Seeking additional sources of income, by checking benefit entitlements, and providing a range of other options as appropriate.
* Financial planning: Creating and maintaining a detailed budget, and being able to adjust a budget based on fluctuating income and expenses. Providing skills to save for emergencies and to help avoid falling into a negative budget in the future.
Advice
* Completing benefit checks to maximise household income.
* Analyse individual or household income and expenditure to identify where savings could be made.
* Supporting individuals to make changes to their expenditure.
* Refer to other Citizens Advice services for additional support and advice where required.
* Maintain case records for the purposes of continuity of casework, information retrieval, statistical monitoring and report preparation.
* Ensure that all work conforms to the organisations Office‑Manual and the Advice Quality Standard and/or the specialist Quality Mark as appropriate.
* Work with and refer to other specialists both within the service and externally to ensure that the client receives the most appropriate specialist support for different issues where appropriate.
Research & Campaigns
* Assist with research and campaigns work by providing information about clients’ circumstances.
* Monitor service provision to ensure that it reaches the widest possible client group.
* Alert other staff to local and national issues.
Professional Development
* Keep up to date with legislation, case law, policies and procedures relating to specified area and undertaking appropriate training.
* Read relevant publications.
* Attend relevant internal and external meetings as agreed with the line manager.
* Prepare to attend supervision sessions/team meetings/management team meetings as appropriate.
* Assist with Service initiatives for the improvement of services.
Administration
* Use IT for statistical recording, record keeping and document production.
* Attend internal and external meetings as agreed with the manager.
* Public relations.
* Maintain good and proactive relationship with the partner agencies.
* Liaise with statutory and non‑statutory organisations and represent the Service on outside bodies as appropriate.
* Carry out any other tasks that may be within the scope of the post to ensure the effective delivery and development of the service.
* Abide by health and safety guidelines and share responsibility for own safety and that of colleagues.
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